Category: winter

Australia · basics · gardening · gratitude · happiness · herbs · winter

An Appreciation of Winter Crops and Sun

Joanne7 Comments

Winter is just simply the most heavenly season of the year in my part of the world.

I  could make a list of the advantages of cooler days and nights, in fact, I’ll do just that! Here’s my “Winter Appreciation” List.

  • The feeling of the soft fluffy fabrics of my jumpers against my skin is pure luxury.
  • I enjoy knitting to my heart’s content, without fear of sweaty fingers.
  • Have I mentioned I wear jeans, just about every day? Jeans in winter are so comfy with my fluffy boots, or clogs.
  • Ironing isn’t quite the chore in winter that it is in summer!
  • I sleep peacefully each night, without waking up all hot and sweaty.
  • The heat of the oven when baking warms the house.
  • My baking satisfies hungry tummies!
  • My cats and kids are all far more cuddly in winter!
  • Hardly any weeds grow in the garden and those that do grow are tiny.
  • Gardening is a pleasure under the warm winter sun.

Okay, that’s ten points. I could go on to one hundred points, but I think you get the drift…

Little “Cutie Cat” and I enjoyed a wonderful wander around the garden this morning; with me photographing all of my green crops, nearly ready to be picked, and she pouncing out from behind bushes to grab at my hand, startling the daylights out of me as I stopped to pull out a weed here and there.

Coriander is definitely at the top of my favourite herbs list and I have three plants growing, one of which is covered in delicate little flowers right now, much to the bees delight. And the spinach that I had all but given up on has had a new lease on life, now looking fresh and green and ready for the picking.

Coriander in flower
Baby spinach

Here’s a view of some old laundry tubs which make wonderful planters pots. This is where my spinach is thriving, along with some recently planted bok choy. We harvested some of the most carroty tasting carrots I have ever had the pleasure eating from these tubs, only about a month ago. Imperfect, but beautiful.

Recycled tubs
New carrots

The cauliflower and broccoli were planted at the same time, although the broccoli has overtaken the cauliflower by a long shot. We’ll be enjoying the first of this season’s broccoli tonight. 🙂

Broccoli and Cauliflower
Ready to eat.

I’ve taken a freshly picked lettuce inside and we have an ample supply of flat leaf parsley on standby, flourishing away happily in the winter sun.

Home grown lettuce
Flat leaf parsley

Our garden is extra green at the moment. This is one family you can rest assured  will be “eating their green’s” for the rest of the winter.

Cutey gardener
Sunning herself
Australia · Changes · gratitude · Mount Warning · winter

A Beautiful Misty Morning

Joanne6 Comments

What a beautiful scene I awoke to this morning! Looking out of the windows at the back of my house, down into the valley, it looked as if an ocean had taken up residence!

Mount Warning looked over the valley, as majestic as ever, smiling on the new day, mist dancing around at her feet.

A sleepy old farm house at the bottom of the valley looked as though it may be swallowed up by a blanket of mist at any moment. You will have to run your mouse over this photo and click on it to enlarge, to see the old home.

In parts of the valley the mist was so dense, it looked for all the world as if we live beside the Pacific Ocean, although we are actually about ten minutes drive from the coast.

This beautiful mist effect happens regularly at this time of year. After weeks of cold weather, we enjoyed warmer temperatures yesterday, in the low twenties. When the earth cools again at night, the mist rolls in! Stunning…

A regular in our garden, a friendly kookaburra who enjoys dive bombing our pool, perched himself on our pool fence, watching the unfolding of a new day.

Although it is the middle of winter, our neighbours beautiful magnolia tree is already in full bloom. It looked particularly pretty today.

After such a beautiful start to the day, I still have one request for the Gods of the Weather ~ Please, may I have just a little more winter, before the summer arrives again? 🙂

Australia · inspiration · knowledge · winter

The Week That Almost Never Was

Joanne4 Comments

Today is Friday, and as I pondered the events of the past week this morning, at first glance the week appeared to have been mostly uneventful.

Hmm…I’ve been busy all week ~ doing what?

Further scrutiny has revealed the evidence, the clues scattered around my desk ~ hand written notes of “points to remember”. The “Mystery of the Vanishing Week” has been solved.

Every day this week has been occupied with research on the internet and we all know how fast time can disappear, in an instant, when engrossed on the net!

This time spent deep in research has indeed been worthwhile as all the right people are appearing, just when I need them, to take me to the next level in my quest for knowledge.

In fact, my week could very well be summed up by the following Buddhist proverb:

“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear”.

This week’s events in my life are yet another example that when you know what you want in your life, have faith and it will come to you. 🙂

Further thought has also revealed to me other events, for which I am extremely grateful. The university course information, requested by my daughter, has arrived. A week ago she began questioning whether she would be capable of successfully completing her chosen course. The arrival of this information has given her a new spark of interest and I am expecting the right people will be appearing in her life, helping her to make decisions regarding the next steps for her, after finishing school in a few months time.

My gratitude is also directed firmly towards the weather! Mundane, perhaps to some, but not to me ~ oh, how I am relishing the cold air, bestowed by the Gods of the Chill this week on Australia!

This leads me into even more gratifying thoughts…during next week I will have both my youngest children on school holidays, so we will spend some time together, without the burden of being conscious of the time! No wake-up alarms to set, no lunches to be packed, no getting-to-the-bus-on-time, no homework and no “go to bed early, so you won’t miss the bus in the morning”.

For a change to the usual routine, we could visit a lighthouse. There are two lighthouses, located within less than an hour’s drive from home. While we are there, we can go walking along the beach. Winter on the beach is wonderful in my area, on a sunny day.

It is perfect weather also to take a drive towards the Magical Mountain, which I photographed and wrote about this week. All we will need is a clear day and the camera, and off we will go!

Next week is shaping up to be an enjoyable week, just as this week has been, in a different way. I would call this week “The New Knowledge Week”. It would be appropriate to call next week “Freedom from School” week or perhaps “Quietly Adventuring Week”.

Either way, I’ll keep you posted. 🙂

How has your week progressed? I’d love to hear about the gratifying events of your days.

Australia · Changes · winter

Winter Sunset Over The Magical Mountain

Joanne7 Comments

Yesterday we experienced a particularly cold day. Apparently our maximum temperature only reached nineteen degrees Celsius, although I can’t work out at just what time of day the nineteen degrees happened, as I froze all day!

Yes, I can hear some of you laughing at me right now…and I do appreciate the fact that if your area reaches a maximum of minus-something degrees during winter, you can’t leave the house at all, due to frost bite, and even if you can get out the front door, the snow is so banked up you can’t get any further than your front gate, nineteen degrees seems like a heat-wave!

Surely you understand though, it’s a matter of what you are acclimatised to!

One of the advantages of our cooler weather (yes, there are always advantages, to what at first may appear a disadvantage), was yesterday afternoon’s beautiful sunset.

The photo really doesn’t do it justice. The sky was amazing! Can you see the clouded area over and above the mountain? That is a little stream of smoke from our local sugar mill. Sugar cane farming is one of the local industries in my area.

The mountain in the photo is Mount Warning, named by Captain James Cook in 1770. The highest peak of the mountain is the point where the rays of the sun first fall on Australia each morning.

Yesterday’s winter sunset photo reminded me of a collection of photos I had taken during the summer months, in the same position as yesterday, showing the vivid yellow/orange sky, after a hot summers day.

The view is constantly changing over the magical mountain. It’s yet another natural wonder, one which I will never tire of seeing. 🙂

cooking · gardening · recipe · soup · winter

Lunch In The Garden…Pea and Ham Soup

JoanneLeave a comment

The chilling winter’s air froze my skin, as I headed into my garden yesterday morning. Rugged up in layers of clothes, wearing thick socks and ankle height wellington boots, I knew the chill would soon leave me.

No matter how low the temperature is, the cold air is easy to tolerate when I am gardening. The cooler days are such a refreshing change…we have been enjoying eleven degrees Celsius morning and night recently, warming up most days to around 20 degrees.

As lunchtime approached, I remembered the big pot of pea and ham soup I had prepared the day before…warmed up for lunch, it would taste even better than it did last night!

This is yet another one of my Mum’s recipes, although I use the word “recipe” extremely loosely here, as there has never been any official recipe for this soup.

It is so easy to prepare and quantities can be judged to suit yourself also. Firstly, I soak about 1 cup of split green peas and half a cup each of pearl barley and dried soup mix in boiling hot water for an hour or two.

This batch of soup was made in my slow cooker although I usually cook it up in a large stock pan. Either way, it will bubble away all day if you wish, on a low simmer.

When the dried peas, barley and soup mix have softened a little, I drain off the water, place them in the pan and half fill the pan with water. Add 500g of meaty bacon bones or a large bacon hock and 300g of diced bacon. Turn on the heat and start cooking.

The vegetables that I usually add are one or two sliced onions and three of each of the following, all either diced or sliced ~ potatoes, carrots, celery sticks, parsnips and turnips. Top up the pan with extra water, after all the vegetables are added.

And that’s it! I wouldn’t even add herbs, salt and pepper, unless of course that suits your taste. Once the soup is well cooked, the water turns into beautiful bacon stock, as the chunks of bacon fall off the bones and the split peas go “mushy”, which thickens the stock.

Toast is a wonderful accompaniment to pea and ham soup.

I do not recall ever having enjoyed this soup more than I did yesterday, outdoors, with the cool bite of a winter’s breeze on my skin.

And as usual, my beautiful little “helper” hardly left my side! 🙂